Conservatives invariably overstate threats to America

Diby has an excellent post describing how the American Conservatives have a pattern of always overestimating the strength of America's enemies and underestimating America's ability to deal with those enemies. Here is her introduction:

I have been writing for years that the neocons are always wrong about everything and this new NIE basically stating that the Iran threat has been vastly overstated drives that home once more. It would be funny if it weren't so dangerous.

The crux of their argument, going all the way back to their membership in the Scoop Jackson cult is that a vastly weakened America is in grave danger of being taken over by a totalitarian tyrant and that the intelligence agencies are underestimating the threat.

The pattern they have followed with this new National Intelligence Estimate is just an example, as was estimate of the danger of the USSR when it was in fact on its last legs. Go read Digby's excellent post.

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Addendum December 05, 2007 9:15 AM CST
Why would conservatives invariably overstate threats to America? In my opinion there are probably two reasons. First, these are likely to be people with a tendency for paranoia in the first place. But second, and more important, these are conservatives who have little to sell to voters beyond fear. They sell a philosophy that claims government cannot do anything, yet they are political actors trying to be elected to powerful positions in that government that according to them doesn't work, and when elected they work hard to make that statement true. Why would voters elect such a politician (or accept such a person as a high government official appointed by like-minded politicians.)

So NeoCons and other conservatives sell a story of fear to the public, pass themselves off as the new reincarnation of Winston Churchill, and demand extraordinary actions of Americans to defend the nation, and when that message succeeds in getting them elected, they are rewarded for selling that message of fear. Their purpose is to get elected and gain power, not to defend America from a threat. In fact, more often than not the threat is primarily imaginary.